Barry Eisler
An Interview with Barry Eisler (June, 2012):
Barry Eisler spent three years in a covert position with the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, then worked as a technology lawyer and startup executive in Silicon Valley and Japan, earning his black belt at the Kodokan International Judo Center along the way. Eisler’s bestselling thrillers have won the Barry Award and the Gumshoe Award for Best Thriller of the Year; they have been included in numerous “Best Of” lists; and they have been translated into nearly twenty languages. Eisler lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and, when he’s not writing novels, he blogs about torture, civil liberties, and the rule of law. www.barryeisler.com
In 2011, Barry left his Big-Six publisher, turning down a half-million dollar contract, having decided to self-publish his next book. Ultimately, he signed with the new Amazon imprint, Thomas & Mercer. His first book with Thomas & Mercer, The Detachment, #7 in his John Rain series, is currently available. Here he shares his insights into the publishing world.
Interview by BWG member Carol L. Wright
BWG: New authors are told that the only way to make it in the publishing world is to have a great agent. Many publishers will not consider submissions unless they come from an agent. With all the changes in the publishing world, is having an agent more or less necessary today than it was ten years ago?
Barry Eisler: Overall, having an agent is less important today. When paper was the only means of distributing books, the only way a writer could make a living from her writing was through a legacy publisher, and the only way a writer could get a legacy publisher to publish her books was through an agent. So in the paper publishing world, absent a few minor exceptions, it was indeed necessary for a writer to have an agent.
But the advent of digital book distribution has for the first time made self-publishing a financially viable option for authors. Authors interested in self-publishing don’t need agents; for those writers interested in a legacy deal, an agent remains as important as ever.
BWG: What do you see as the role of an agent in 2012?
Barry Eisler: The primary role of literary agents has traditionally been twofold: (i) broker the deal; and (ii) manage the relationship. For authors who want legacy deals, these two functions will remain primary. In self-publishing, there’s no deal to broker and no relationship to manage, so agents who want to work with self-published authors need to add value in other ways. I think the natural path for such agents is to perform more of a business managerial function rather than a brokering/representative one. There have always been and will always be a significant number of editorial, marketing, and other functions that need to be performed for any writer to make a living from her writing, and only a few writers will want to perform all such business functions themselves. The majority will want to outsource, which will create new business opportunities for agents who want to profit from the growth of self-publishing.
BWG: Is there ever a case when an author absolutely must have an agent? Is there ever a case when an author should not have an agent?
Barry Eisler: I don’t know about “must have,” but I think it’s pretty hard to land a legacy deal without an agent. I’m sure there are exceptions, but in business I don’t think it makes sense to try to achieve your objectives by choosing a path that has proven itself almost never effective. As I mention above, for writers who want to publish through the legacy route, the best and most proven route is to have an agent represent you.
As for “should not,” I think all writers, and indeed all businesspeople, should be as dispassionate as possible in assessing whether and how much their partners are adding value. Agents typically take 15% of a writer’s earnings in exchange for their services, and if an agent isn’t creating at least 15% of value, obviously the relationship is costing the writer money. A good agent adds far more value than the 15% she charges. A bad one is a net loss.
BWG: What does an agent do that an intellectual property lawyer can or will not?
Barry Eisler: An intellectual property lawyer can negotiate a contract (I should know; I used to be one). But contract negotiation is just one aspect of agenting, and in fact isn’t even one of the two primary agent value-adds I mention above (brokering the deal and managing the relationship). And there’s also editorial and other creative collaboration—a good agent adds significant value there, too. So I think you could say that a lawyer’s functions are in some ways a subset of an agent’s. That’s not to say that an author always needs an agent; for those authors who for whatever reason need more contract work and less of the other functions an agent performs, a flat fee or hourly rate arrangement with an attorney might make more sense than paying a percentage to an agent. An author should ask herself what functions she needs performed, how often, how much she wants to pay, what kind of career she wants, how she plans to have her books published, and related questions, and the answers will help her decide what kind of partner or hire is best for her needs.
BWG: What impact, if any, will an agent have on an author’s advances and royalties? Do emerging authors need an agent more or less than established authors?
Barry Eisler: I know firsthand that a good agent will have an enormous impact on an author’s advances and royalties, and this is one area in which a good agent can clearly, mathematically demonstrate that she is adding value greater than the 15% she charges. A lazy, complacent, complicit, or otherwise bad agent might settle for say, a $100,000 advance. A good agent, with the right relationships, the right marketing acumen, and a little flair for showmanship could easily double that. Even if the first agent charged nothing, you’d be better off with the second—the first would have made you $100,000; the second, after her 15%, would have made you $170,000.
Probably an emerging author interested in a legacy deal does need an agent more than is the case for an established author. If an author has a good track record, a publisher will likely want to publish him even if he’s not agented. I mean, to use an extreme example, I think Stephen King could probably land his next legacy deal even without an agent. Absent a track record, though, I think most legacy publishers are still going to focus on manuscripts by agented authors. In fact, the outsourcing of slush pile review is just a business reality of legacy publishing. Editors trust agents to do much of the culling and initial editorial and for the most part aren’t interested in performing such functions themselves.
BWG: Can an agent make the difference between an author languishing in midlist or making it to the top? Is an author better off being featured with a small publisher than being a midlist author with a big publisher?
Barry Eisler: Just as a good agent can make a huge difference regarding advances and royalties, I’m sure a good agent can also make the difference on midlist vs bestseller and in an author’s career generally. Agents, accountants, lawyers, PR people… in my experience, about 50% of practitioners of any service profession are bad, 30% are competent, 16% are good, and 4% are magicians. The trick, of course, is finding the good ones, and hopefully one of the magicians.
My only publishing experience has been with big publishers (Putnam and Ballantine), self-publishing, and with Amazon, so I don’t have a good basis for an opinion about the benefits and drawbacks of big vs small. My sense is that it depends on the book and the editor more than anything else.
BWG: Do most agents edit an author’s manuscript or proposal before sending it out? Is this one reason agents are preferred by authors and publishers?
Barry Eisler: I’ve had two agents and both were excellent editors. My wife is an agent, and she’s also an excellent editor (unfair advantage for me). I don’t know about other agents, but I’d be leery about paying an agent 15% of my earnings if excellent editorial weren’t part of the package. Not that the editorial alone would justify the 15% (it wouldn’t come close), but for that kind of remuneration, I expect a lot of value in areas beyond just brokering the deal and managing the relationship.
Yes, as I mention above, I think one reason legacy publishers prefer agented manuscripts is because they know an agented manuscript is likely to have received at least some (and possibly a great deal) of editorial work from the agent.
BWG: Can an author with an agent expect more promotional support from his/her publisher than one who is unrepresented? Do agents offer promotional support? How much of the promotional work is left to the author even if he or she is represented?
Barry Eisler: I think a legacy-published author’s chances are improved across the board by the presence of a good agent—better advances and royalties; better covers and packaging; better promotion. No matter what, though, an author should be under no illusions about the amount of promotional work a publisher will expect her to do herself. In fact, one of the zombie memes of publishing goes something like, “Self-publishing isn’t for everyone because not all authors want to or know how to promote themselves.” Any author who thinks she won’t have to promote herself once she lands that legacy deal has been in a coma for at least a decade. Absent the very few works publishers anoint for the full-court promotional press (and again, why play to the exceptions?), self-promotion is part of all publishing. For more thoughts on this topic, here’s an essay I wrote called The Writer As Entrepreneur.
http://www.barryeisler.com/writers_marketing3.php
I think some agents offer promotional support, though I have no firsthand experience with such agents. I know Robert Gottlieb and Trident Media were out front in adding such services to their product line, but I don’t know how it’s worked out in practice.
BWG: Is the current move to self-publishing driven solely by technology, or does the difficult process of finding an agent and/or publisher play a role? With the rise of so many micro presses, e-book publishers, and self-publishers, how have agents had to adapt?
Barry Eisler: I don’t think technology can drive any trend that isn’t also driven by demand—it’s more like technology enables the demand to be realized. I could go on at length about this, and about everything else you’ve asked about! So maybe this is a good time to link to a free, downloadable book I wrote with my friend, the novelist J.A. Konrath. It’s called BE THE MONKEY: A CONVERSATION ABOUT THE NEW WORLD OF PUBLISHING.
http://www.barryeisler.com/ebooks.php#monkey
BWG: We have been told not to mention a previous, self-published book when querying an agent. Is it harder for a previously self-published author to find an agent for a subsequent book? Does it depend more on the quantity of their sales or the quality of their writing?
Barry Eisler: Is it harder for a previously self-published author to find an agent for a subsequent book? Ask Amanda Hocking… J
I think the only relevance of being previously self-published to landing an agent and a legacy deal would have to do with sales. If the previously self-published books have done well, that ought to help land a legacy deal. If they’ve done poorly, it might hurt. Though if the legacy publisher really loves the book, I would think the previous, poor self-published sales wouldn’t be an undue obstacle (I mean, if legacy publishers don’t think they can sell a book better than a self-published author can, that’s not a very good sign for their future).
Overall, I wouldn’t want to work with an agent or a publisher who was spooked by anything I’d previously done in self-publishing. For me, that kind of reticence suggests a lack of passion and confidence, and maybe an ideological approach to business that wouldn’t mesh with my own pragmatic approach.
BWG: Should authors expect to stay with an agent for the long haul, or should authors expect to find a new agent repeatedly throughout their careers?
Barry Eisler: If your agent is growing as you do and continuing to add value, and if it would cost more to replace the agent than it would to keep him, of course you should stay with your first. How this works out in practice is very much case by case, but I think the preceding sentence is the right guideline. I’m aware my guideline might strike some people as a bit cold-blooded, but if someone is charging me 15% for services rendered, it seems sensible to evaluate and act on the relationship based primarily on business considerations.
Speaking personally, I’ve had two agents and am currently unagented (before anyone seizes on my experience as proof that writers don’t need agents, remember: one, I’m a former intellectual property attorney; two, I’m married to a top agent; and three, my first eight books were all agented. So I don’t know that I’m such a good template for other writers considering whether they might be okay without an agent). Both my agents did a good job and added a lot of value for the books we worked on together, but eventually in both cases I felt that our visions for the right approach to, and direction of, my career had diverged, and it was time to move on. These weren’t easy decisions on an emotional level, but again, I think it’s best to try to set aside emotion in business and evaluate things as dispassionately as possible.
BWG: We’re seeing some agencies become involved in e-publishing. Many believe this could be a conflict of interests. What is your opinion?
Barry Eisler: In my experience, most of the people complaining about conflicts of interest don’t know what the term even means. I’ve addressed this question at length in a guest post on J.A. Konrath’s excellent blog, A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing:
http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2011/06/attack-of-self-publishing-memes-guest.html
BWG: What is the most important piece of advice you would offer an emerging author, other than writing the best book they can?
Barry Eisler: Believe in yourself and don’t give up. Success always involves a lot of luck, and our job is to keep trying and trying again until we get lucky. That is, to control all the things we can control and influence all the things we can influence to make ourselves as susceptible as possible to good luck and mitigate our exposure to bad.
BWG: How can unpublished authors find the best agent, intellectual property lawyer, or publisher for them?
Barry Eisler: I think writers’ conferences can be a great resource. I’ve been to many I thought were excellent—substantively, of course, but also for networking. Off the top of my head, I’d recommend the Big Sur Writing Workshop, the San Diego Writer’s Workshop, and the San Francisco Writers Conference. Definitely anything put on by Grub Street Writers—Grub is awesome. I did the keynote at this year’s Writer’s Digest Conference, and there seemed to a ton of agents, editors, and other publishing professionals there. If you write thrillers, Thrillerfest is great; if mysteries (but also thrillers) are more your bag, Bouchercon is also terrific, and so are Left Coast Crime and New England Crimebake. For romance, Romantic Times is the bomb, and Romance Writers of America also seems good. There are many, many others—I’m really just scratching the surface.
http://bigsurwriting.wordpress.com/
http://writersconferences.com/index.htm
http://www.writersdigestconference.com/ehome/index.php?eventid=27962&tabid=44633&
http://www.leftcoastcrime.org/
http://crimebake.org/index.htm
BWG: Thank you very much for sharing your insights and advice.
Interview by BWG member Carol L. Wright